


ring the bells that can still ring

by Butterfly



Series: Scenes from a Resurrection Story [20]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: M/M, Margo Hanson/Fen (mentioned/minor), Margo Hanson/Josh Hoberman (mentioned/minor), Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn (past) - Freeform, Quentin Coldwater/Arielle/Eliot Waugh (past)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-03-02 17:08:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly/pseuds/Butterfly
Summary: "Bravery, it turned out, was actually really fucking hard." or Eliot debates the pros and cons of courage.If you are reading this as a stand-alone queliot fic: this story takes place in a post-4x13 fix-it universe where Q worked with Penny40 and the living questers to break himself out of the Underworld. He, Margo, Eliot, Alice, and Penny23 are currently in the middle of a quest to reverse the 300-year time jump in Fillory. Julia, Kady, and Penny40 are on Earth, in another plotline involving the restoration of Julia's god-spark.





	1. add up the parts (you won't have the sum)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is the first in the series to have the explicit rating. Because I haven't had explicit sexual descriptions in the previous stories in the series, I will give advance warning of their location ahead time when we come to the relevant chapter, for anyone who might want to skip them.
> 
> Content warnings: discussion of depression and suicide. Christopher Plover also appears in this story as an antagonist.
> 
> Relationship tags are for this story as a whole, not just for this specific chapter.

“I could have at least tried making a copy of Jane's watch,” Quentin said, sullenly, for about the eighth time that day. Eliot concentrated on moving forward. There was no point in talking to Quentin about it. They'd all had a hand at reasoning with Quentin on this subject. He just stubbornly insisted that he should have _at least_ given it a try, ignoring all their efforts to point out that a) it wasn't needed since Margo already knew that the community of dwarves who'd made the original watch were still thriving and they could just go there; b) he'd almost fucking niffined-out making the fucking time key; c) so, logically, he'd done more than his fair share for this quest already; d) he could _fucking die_ doing all that again, the selfish _idiot_.

Well, that last one had mostly been Eliot. And had earned him half a day of the silent treatment from Q.

He really did need to talk to Q. Not argue or soothe or comfort but just... talk.

Bravery, it turned out, was actually really fucking hard.

He'd thought about doing it right away, pulling the bandaid off, making his big confession, laying his heart on the floor in front of Q's feet. It had gone pretty well the first time, with Q in the Underworld, after all. And so when Quentin had come back, shaky and numb, without his memory of his time there... that was fine, they were prepared for that, Quentin had warned them that it might take time for him to remember. But-

But then Quentin'd had an anxiety attack when Eliot had left his bedroom to take a piss in the middle of the night. He'd been gone less than five minutes, that first time. Coming back to find Q frantic over the idea that he'd only imagined Eliot was back had been... heartbreaking. And then it happened again and again... so many times where Q had needed to grab Eliot around the waist, gaze up into his eyes, press his entire shaking body against Eliot's like he was making sure Eliot was real...

Yeah.

No way 'I'm in love with you' under those conditions would feel like the truth to Quentin. He'd convince himself that Eliot had felt trapped, would believe that Eliot had only changed his mind because Q needed him so much.

Or maybe that was just something Eliot told himself to hide the fact that he was reverting back to his natural cowardice.

“Look, assholes, we're almost there, and if everyone could stop whining, we'd be there even faster.” Margo had started out at the front, but when Alice had gotten a blister, she'd fallen back a bit to help her along, and now she just yelled directions at Quentin when needed. “I swear, you're worse than a murder of fucking swans.”

Quentin's stride slowed for a moment and his back straightened, but he didn't say anything right away.

Then.

“Bevy.” The word was soft, then Quentin sighed and said, more loudly, “A group of swans. It's a bevy.”

“Is it?” Margo asked, archly. “You been studying birds recently, Coldwater? I've met swans and they're brutal and nasty, so murder seems more fitting.”

“I had a book-” And Quentin spun around, facing Margo, his face lit up with annoyance. “Margo. You _gave me_ a book on migratory birds years ago, after Brakebills South! I found that out from a book you gave me!”

“Did I?” Margo tightened her arm around Alice's waist, hoisting her up a little. “Must have forgotten.”

“Bambi can be forgetful,” Eliot added, as if from a moment of deep thoughtfulness. “I'm pretty sure she's blanked out most of our first year at Brakebills. Then again, so have I.”

Quentin rolled his eyes, turned his back on them, and marched on.

He stopped talking about going back to try making a copy of the damn watch, at least.

Eliot kinda wished that Twenty-Three had stayed with them. It had been a smart idea, for him to go scout out around Whitespire, since astral projection and traveling made for a hell of an effective spy, but another voice to distract Q from his spiral of thoughts would have been welcome. Someone who had a little less emotional baggage where Q was concerned.

Eliot, Margo, and Alice – baggage and all – had formed something of a natural group during the time when Q had been dead. It had seemed... petty and stupid to be jealous of Alice when none of them were going to get to see Q again. Even Margo had admitted that much, and she could be proud of her pettiness, sometimes. They would have taken Julia, too, but she'd guarded her grief closely, like a mother bear over a wounded cub. Eliot couldn't fault her for that. Not when it had been obvious how deeply she blamed herself for what had happened.

 _We all let him down_ , Margo had said, during those terrible months when they'd thought everything that had ever been Quentin had been consumed and destroyed by the Seam. It hadn't been hard to agree. Eliot could still remember how determined – how certain – he'd been when he'd pointed the gun at the monster, back at the start of all this. Trying so hard to keep Q from being a prisoner and just making his prison that much uglier and more painful. _We all let him down and now we have to live with what comes after._

Even now, with Q back – amazingly, miraculously, blessedly back – they were still trying to live with 'what comes after'.

For a long while, there had been a constant dance at play, every moment of every day. How much caution was too much and would make Quentin feel like they thought he was broken... should they act normally now or did they need to watch their words here... was touching him this much healthy or were they pushing the line past what Quentin would have wanted, if he weren't so desperately trying to hold on to himself. And on and on, every touch, every word, every moment second-guessed. It was, from what Eliot understood from his conversations with the others, even more difficult for the rest of them. He'd had years of experience with bad times, though never – thankfully never quite as bad as Q had been immediately post-resurrection – and he had a mental checklist already in place to go through. Use their mosaic color-code to check in on Q's general well-being, see how much he was ready to let other people help him versus what he needed to do for himself to not feel like a burden, and listen-look-feel-pay attention what his body was saying even when he couldn't get the words out. Eliot'd had to try to explain that to the others, had fumbled over what had taken him – him and Arielle – time and hard-won experience to figure out. Being on Earth had made some things easier – meds and therapy helped so much more than his and Arielle's attempts at finding Fillorian alternatives – but a lot of it was the same as what he'd learned in Fillory.

It was worth it; it was worth it a million times over.

But that didn't mean it wasn't hard.

It was better now – Q was doing so much better now – but Eliot didn't plan on taking that for granted. He knew that it would still be hard, for a long time to come. That it could get harder again, that it could-

There was an immeasurable, impossible gap in between knowing that Quentin had made suicide attempts somewhere in the dusty past of his pre-Brakebills life and then experiencing the reality of a future without Quentin in it, of a life without Quentin existing and that being Q's _choice_. Having lived in that place once, the idea of going through it again was- unthinkable. When the guardian at the gates of the dead had asked Eliot what he would give to have Quentin back, saying 'anything' had been easy. Anything, anything, anything.

Anything to make the hole in his heart go away.

Yes, he would sacrifice whatever she'd named. Yes, he would accept if Q never loved him back, would be 'just friends' until he died if that was the price. Of course, yes, please. He would face any trial she offered, pay any price required. Anything. _Everything_. There was nothing he wouldn't have been willing to give, to get Q's life as the reward. And that knowledge itself seemed to be the price – to know for a certainty that he would throw away everything else that mattered, just for this one thing that, to him, mattered more.

Eliot sighed and shifted his pack on his shoulders. He needed- he needed to apologize to Margo. He might not have seen any of her grand love affair with Josh Hoberman – though he distantly recalled her saying once that she maybe wanted to fuck him – but that didn't excuse what he'd said back in the Clock Barrens when he was trying to argue Quentin out of risking his life to make the time key.

It was, to Eliot's shame, true – he absolutely _would_ trade Josh's life for Q's, would trade Fillory, even Fen as much as he'd come to care for her, all for the hope of keeping Q alive – but some things shouldn't be said out loud, regardless. He owed her an apology. He owed her- a lot of things.

Still, his eyes stayed on Quentin's back, tracing over the tight, frustrated lines of his shoulders and back...

Even a moment like this, when Quentin was treating them all like buzzing flies that were trying to distract him from more important things, was... overwhelming. He'd been back months now, but every time Eliot looked at Q, there was still that echo of Margo's voice, saying so so so gently, _El, Q isn't here because... uh, fuck, I don't know how to say it. There's no good way to- El, Q didn't make it back. He's not coming back_.

The truth of what Margo had said hadn't hit Eliot right away, but had come in stages.

First, the nagging, selfish ache that Quentin's priority had been the mission instead of staying with Eliot.

Next, the slow-dawning realization that Margo hadn't meant Q was stuck somewhere needing a rescue but was- but was-

Then, when Julia had stared at Alice and Twenty-Three with shocked horror on her face and a question trapped behind her tongue... well, the same question poked at Eliot's brain too.

Finally, finally, it had all crashed in on Eliot when he'd heard more of the story of the monster and his missing year and he'd _known_. He hadn't been able to say it, still could barely think it, but he'd known.

“It's funny how I can want to strangle him and hug him at the same time,” Alice said, quietly enough that Quentin, several feet ahead of them, probably didn't hear her. He didn't react, anyway. “I'd- I'd forgotten what a brat he could be.”

“Loss does that,” Margo said, and Eliot wondered if she was thinking of Josh now, too, three hundred years dead and gone. “Buffs out the bad bits and shines up the good ones. We remember sweet and funny Quentin, our tender, soft, nerdy Q, and forget about all the ways he could piss us the fuck off.”

It was another few hours, night starting to fall, before they reached the barred gates of the mountain pass that would lead to the dwarven city. There, they ran into another slight snag.

“Yeah, no. That's not gonna work for me. Only former Fillorian High King Margo can come in,” Haro, the dwarven guard at the window in the gate drawled, again. Eliot could just barely make out light brown eyes under her helmet. “We don't know anything about the rest of you.”

“They're former kings and queens of Fillory, too,” Margo protested. “They've got just as much right-”

“Why should I care about that?” Haro asked, completely ignoring the murderous look on Margo's face. “You're the one that matters. First and last elected ruler of Fillory, overthrown by the traitors High King Fen and Josh the Fresh Prince, who were then overthrown by the Dark King. Here to fulfill the prophecy that was given forth by the Napster before the Dark King cut her head off and displayed it on a pike outside Whitespire. The Napster didn't say anything about previous kings and queens. If you want them to come in too, you'll have to wait for them to be investigated by the Council of the Seventh Son, as is standard for any non-dwarves wanting to enter the city. Which usually takes about four to eight weeks, so if you'd rather go that route, I guess you can give me their names so we can get started.”

She and Margo stared each other down unblinkingly through the window for a solid minute, then Margo turned back to the rest of them. “Okay, so if you three just wanna wait here, I'll go inside and let them know what we need.”

“Did you know anything about this prophecy?” Eliot asked. But quietly, so Haro couldn't hear his confusion.

“First I've heard of it,” Margo whispered back. “But, uh. Seems like a good thing, so I'm willing to roll with it. The Napster's kinda the one who made it possible for me to get exiled so that I could get the axes and save your ass, so I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. I mean. She was full-on freaky-nightmare weird, from what Fen said, but she probably wants me to come back and save her from getting decapitated.”

“Try to get the exact wording of the prophecy, if you can,” Quentin suggested. “Um. The details might matter.”

“Do my best,” Margo said. She nodded to them all, dropped her pack next to Eliot, and faced the gate. It creaked open, just barely wide enough to her to slip through, and she still had to turn sideways to manage it. It was hastily closed as soon as she was inside and only Haro was visible again now, through her little window.

“How long will she be gone?” Alice asked Haro, who shrugged.

“Somewhere between two to five days, depending on how her discussions with the Council of the Third Daughter go.”

“Okay- I- I have to ask – the books- um-” Quentin was raising his hand a little nervously. “-the books weren't all that clear on the government of the dwarven city so is- is the Council of the Third Daughter an actual council made up of third daughters or it is just a title that was- was given to the council because of a significant third daughter in dwarven history or- I don't know- something else maybe?"

Haro narrowed her eyes at Quentin, looking slightly interested. “Yeah. I mean... both? You really wanna know, former whatever of Fillory?”

“I do,” Quentin said, fervently. “I really really want to know.”

And Haro proceeded to tell him. For a good three hours. While Eliot tried not to die inside. Alice was able to feign interest for maybe half an hour before her face just crumpled up in pure boredom and she went to talk to Eliot.

“I don't understand how he can care so much. They're talking about petty government bureaucracy. It's the most boring thing in the world.”

“Ah, but this is _Fillorian_ petty bureaucracy. Or close enough.” Eliot smiled. He was just as bored as Alice right now, but there would be a time, in the not-so-distant future, when Q would want to relay all the information that Haro had told him and- and- well, very few boring things were still boring when Quentin was the one telling him about them. “You know, if we are going to be stuck out here for a few days, we should probably start setting up camp.”

He and Alice picked a nice spot within site of the gate, then set to work pulling the tent and the bedrolls and some containers of food out of their packs. After a while, Quentin noticed what they were doing and came over to help put up the camp chairs, delighted – as he often was – with the TARDIS-esque properties of the traveling bags. Dimples in his cheeks and crinkles at the corners of his eyes and, yes, already excitedly chattering on about the thing that they'd just spent three hours listening to him learn from Haro – _oh yes_ , Eliot thought, warmth glowing in his chest, _I have missed you so much_.

It was the same relief that he'd felt several times in their life in past Fillory, when the dark clouds finally cleared out of Quentin's head – just for now, never forever, but always worth celebrating – and then Q would smile and eat without needing to be reminded and get up early enough in the mornings that it made Eliot want to throw something at him and... and grab Eliot or Arielle, whoever was closer, and kiss them all over because, he would tell them, they looked too pretty _not_ to kiss.

“Q,” he said, breaking into the one-sided conversation and getting a small but bright smile directed at him in return. “What color tile?”

It only took a moment, Q's eyes sparkling as he thought it over, and the answer didn't come as a surprise, “Oh. _Pink_. I'm pink again. Huh.”

“Yeah,” Eliot said, and he couldn't help himself, he reached out and he cupped the back of Q's neck and pulled him into a hug and pressed his mouth against the crown of Q's head. Not just any pink – mosaic pink meant early dawn light, meant soft and happy and safe. “It's been a while.”

“Longer than you know,” Quentin mumbled against his chest. “I never realize how much I'm missing when I'm in the middle of it. Happiness seems like such an impossible thing.”

“Well, I'll have to just keep reminding you how good we are at doing impossible things,” Eliot said and it almost seemed like now was the moment, while Quentin was feeling open and hopeful and- and _pink_... but then he glanced up, saw Alice's face and- he'd been on the other side of that look, that pained yearning. Reluctantly, he stroked Q's back one last time and then pushed him away. “Ready for dinner?”

“Starving,” Quentin said, with enthusiasm.

Margo and Eliot had done most of the cooking for this trip, but Alice had done the packing. She'd labeled each container carefully as breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks. He wasn't entirely sure why, since she hadn't seemed surprised the first time Eliot had grabbed a 'breakfast' container for dinner, but if it made her feel better to do it, then she could do what she wanted.

He looked over to see if maybe Haro would be open to being invited over for the meal, but the little window on the gate was closed now. “I hope they're feeding Bambi something expensive in there.”

“The rich food of the banquet halls in the city of the dwarves was a delight to Jane's palate,” Quentin said, with the air of a quote. “She found particular enjoyment in the desserts, trays piled high with sweet pastries and cakes with a tangy aftertaste unlike anything she had eaten at home.”

“That sounds... really nice,” Alice said. She looked down at her cucumber sandwich, sighed, and took a bite, then put the sandwich back down again. “Um. Okay. I think we- Quentin, you're feeling better, right?”

Quentin blinked and then said, cautiously, “Yes?”

“Because I have some- I have some questions that I've been holding onto for a while now, about- about your lifetime in Fillory and if I'm being too nosy, please just tell me, but I- I was really hoping I could ask. About your life there. About... um. Arielle.” Alice tilted her chin up sharply, making her hair bounce at the edges, and there was a brittleness about her in that moment that made Eliot ache a little in sympathy.

“Oh.” And Quentin looked over at him and there was- Eliot wasn't sure. He seemed nervous and concerned and- and a little guilty? Eliot gave a careless shrug, for Q to take as permission if he felt like he needed it. “Sure. I can- I can answer some questions.”

“You were married to her?”

“We- yeah. Um. We got married a couple of years after- after we started-” Q moved his hands in a vague way that Eliot supposed _could_ mean 'started screwing' if he was being really generous. “You know.”

“But Eliot said you were in a relationship with him, too. At the same time.” Alice glanced at him a little, out of the corner of her eye. “So. Were you also married or-?”

There was a hint of a hesitation... then Quentin laughed, pushed his hair back. “Not really, no, El- El didn't- he didn't want that. Too formal, I guess? Plus he said one marriage and one engagement were enough for him, so.”

“Engagement?” Alice's brow furrowed.

“I was engaged to King Idri of Loria when Quentin and I went on the quest,” Eliot said, quietly, his heart breaking a little over Quentin's laugh. He'd given Q so many bullshit excuses over the years. “It's- a long story. I know you weren't around for most of it. Not much of it still matters now.”

“Okay,” Alice said, accepting that and turning back to Quentin. “I guess I wondered- how it worked? Were you... was it like when you and- during first year? Or was it- separate.”

Quentin stared blankly at her for a long moment, and Eliot could see that her question wasn't quite clicking.

“I didn't fuck Arielle,” Eliot said, and the confusion on Q's face cleared as he understood what Alice had been struggling to ask, a little 'oh she means the sex stuff' look and then a rising blush as he realized that Eliot was continuing to answer the question. “But, sure, there were a handful of wild nights over the years. We were young and frequently bored and-” _and in love_. But he couldn't say that, couldn't rub it in Alice's face like that. “-and sex is a great time-killer.”

“Why does it matter?” Q asked, still blushing but also- also bewildered and slightly... offended, maybe? Eliot wasn't sure. “I don't- why would you care about that?”

“Sorry, I just- is that- is that something you need?” Alice's words were soft and hesitant and it was a painful, shaky mirror up to Eliot's own past fears. _Would you ever be happy with just me?_ She placed her hands in her lap, folded them. “Because- when you slept with- it wasn't just Eliot, you know? It was Margo, too. And you were with- with both Eliot and Arielle when you were in Fillory, in the past. So is that- is that what you need?”

“Uh-I'm sorry about cheating on you,” Quentin said, looking away, his face going through a complicated journey that Eliot couldn't follow. “Um. That's- I know that's not the- not what you're asking about- but I- but the other time I apologized, I tried to- to use it as a way of getting back together with you which was, um. Kinda shitty of me. So. I'm sorry about that too.”

“I forgive you,” Alice said, solemnly, her eyes so big and vulnerable behind her glasses. “If my question was too- too personal. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed.”

Quentin blew his breath out of his mouth, noisy, distracting himself for a moment. Looked over at Alice, then down at his hands. “I guess I- I guess I understand why you want to know.” He glanced over at Eliot, so quickly that Eliot almost missed it, then stared back down at his hands. “No? I mean. I like- it's nice to- I like both at the same time, sure? But. I don't feel deprived or anything when I'm just. With one person. Like. The part of me that's bi isn't the same as the part that's, uh, poly? They don't- don't automatically go together.” He shrugged, all nervous energy. “I was with- uh-” Another glance over at Eliot, and a sharp shake of his head, then, “I was with El for, uh, a few decades. Just us. Arielle, um. She got sick. And then it was just us and little Teddy.”

“Your son,” Alice said, gently, and she wasn't brittle anymore. She seemed fuzzy around the edges now, relaxed into her chair.

“Our son,” Quentin confirmed. “Yeah.”

“Could you maybe tell me about him?” she asked, and she looked over at Eliot, too. “I'd like to know more.”

Quentin took a beat, then smiled like a sunrise. “We could- yeah. We could tell you about Teddy. He-uh, he was a surprise, kinda. I mean-”

“ _Someone_ forgot to do his contraceptive magic,” Eliot said, with a laugh. “And then was shocked when a baby happened.”

“Panicked, really,” Quentin admitted, ducking his face down. “I was- but he ended up, you know. Turning out pretty great.” And Eliot sat back and watched Quentin talk, interjecting comments of his own as needed. He'd never been quite brave enough to do what Alice had done, right there, to face down his most nagging, worrisome fear about a relationship with Q. It almost felt unfair that he'd gotten to hear the answer too. And there was a pit of shame in his stomach that some part of him had felt relieved at hearing what Q had said – shouldn't he know that by now? Shouldn't he trust Q enough by now? If he was still worrying about that bullshit, maybe he didn't deserve the chance to be brave.

He wanted- he really wanted to be brave.

 


	2. forget your perfect offering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot gets the chance to be brave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter was not originally supposed to have a sex scene. That was supposed to all happen in chapter three. But here we are and it happened now. It's not as explicit as the scene in chapter three will be, but I will mark where it begins and ends for y'all if you want to skip it. The chapter as a whole also ended up longer than anticipated, so I'm not sure how long chapter three will end up being.
> 
> The sex scene starts after "near an ocean" and is basically the rest of the chapter except for the line starting "They still had a lot to talk about".

“-some of the details are gone now, but the feeling of it was... there's _nothing_ else in the universe like it.” Alice finished up the story like a conductor finishing a symphony – with a sweeping, controlled motion as she brought it all to a close. Quentin clapped in appreciation, sitting on the ground in front of Eliot, letting his hair be played with – it was starting to get long enough again to do something fun with it but, for now, Eliot just enjoyed getting to run his fingers through the soft strands. After much cajoling, Alice had submitted to having her hair braided after breakfast, and now she looked a little like a darling blonde version of Pippi Longstalking. “Eliot, your turn. _Not_ a sex story this time, though, please.”

“How about- hmm. I _could_ tell the story of the first party that Bambi and I threw together at Brakebills,” Eliot pondered. “I mean, Quentin's heard it before, but it is pretty fucking hilarious.”

“Oh, I'd love-”

But then there was a loud creaking, one that they hadn't heard at all the last four days – the gate finally opening up again. Quentin sprang up from the ground, almost tumbling back down again, all coltish awkwardness, but then bracing on Eliot's knee to steady himself. Eliot got up more sedately, using his cane as a lever.

Margo came through the gate wearing – leather armor? Yeah, that was well-fitting leather armor that she had definitely not been wearing when she'd left – and carrying a basket that was so tall it almost blocked out her face. She wobbled a bit, and Quentin was there next to her, taking it from her and setting it on the ground. He peeked in and- “Oh, wow, hey, guys, Margo brought us stuff from the city! There's, um, cakes and pies and hey, there's a little metal horse in here, Alice, I think it's silver filigree? Pretty, anyway.”

While he was talking, the gate shut itself again, Haro's little window staying firmly closed.

“Is there a watch in there?” Alice asked, trying to look over Quentin's shoulder.

“Please, like I would stuff our ticket home into the souvenir bag,” Margo scoffed, reaching down under her... breastplate? Is that what it was?... and pulling out a pocket watch on a chain. She spun it around so they could see the keyhole on the back. “I've got it right here.”

“Oh! Did you find out about the prophecy?” Quentin had discovered a set of ornate rings in the bag and was proceeding to try them all on. Eliot tried not to find it adorable, but failed miserably. “Um. The exact wording?”

“Okay, here's the thing. Not so much a prophecy and more just the last conversation that the Napster had before Plover took her head off. And she had it with the only talking animal in dream-range, I guess, because it was a fucking squirrel. So, yeah. The squirrel passed along the message to the dwarves and it's a goddamn rollercoaster to read through, but I did get them to transcribe me a copy, so you're welcome, Coldwater.” Margo tugged a scroll out of a sword-sheath that she was wearing on her hip and handed it to Quentin.

He immediately abandoned the bag of gifts from the city and focused on the scroll, running his finger along and mumbling to himself. “Huh. Oh. Wow. Really? That seems... okay. Yeah.” Slowly, he seemed to realize that Eliot and Alice were both staring at him expectantly. “Um. You want me to read it out loud?”

“Yeah,” Eliot said, wrapping an arm around Margo's shoulders. She gave him a look of tolerant affection and he repaid it by pressing a kiss into her hair. “You're good at that.”

Quentin's forehead crinkled a bit, mildly disbelieving, but then he went ahead and read it anyway, so it was a win for Eliot. “Um. It starts with a setting of the scene? Through many trials and perils, the brave knight Kirril the Squirrel – wow, yeah that name sounds worse out loud – the brave knight found his way to the well-defended dwarven kingdom, with a tale of heart-rending woe that would make the hardest of hearts weep. One of the Questing Beasts of the land, the beloved and shadowy Napster, had perished at the hands of the putrid new ruler, the Dark King, the one who had made all the creatures of the realm call out in hopeless despair and anguish. They-um. They really- Um. Right, hopeless despair. But Kirril brought a glimmering light of hope. Before she died, uh, died tragically, the Napster had come to him, in the dreams in which she- uh. In which she dwelled. To deliver unto him a prophecy most dire, and a message that must be delivered.”

“That was all just setting the scene?” Alice asked. She was going through the bag now, but more methodically than Quentin had been, dividing perishables from trinkets.

“Hey, Q, when you get to the parts where the squirrel talks, can you do it in a high-pitched squeak?” Margo requested, giggling in response to Quentin's exaggerated eye-roll. “Just asking!”

“Oh, ignore them,” Eliot said. “Keep reading.”

“ _Anyway_. He had been slumbering, dreaming of... nuts... _stop laughing_ , Margo. He was dreaming and all at once, he saw her tell-tale green cloak in the corner of his room and he found himself chasing her, to, uh, a clearing, like a great cavern in the forest. She lowered her hood and stared at him, with her great predator eyes and intoned, in a voice like doom, uh, 'you might as well do'.”

“You might as well do,” Alice repeated, flatly.

“Yeah, the- uh- the writing style shifts pretty dramatically when it goes from the description to the actual dialogue. So, that's good. It means they probably wrote as an accurate a transcript as they could, even though it didn't match their own literary tradition,” Quentin said, scanning down the page a little. “Oh, okay, here we are. And Kirrel replied, 'please don't eat me'. And the Napster said unto him, 'don't be an idiot – of course I won't eat you; I need your help'. Kirrel was dumbfounded, for he was but- but a young squire of a squirrel and had never expected he might be asked to aid in a great quest. “

“A young squire of a squirrel,” Eliot said, delighted. “Kirrel, the knight squire squirrel. All right, Bambi, when we go back to the past, we have _got_ to find this kid. He needs to be at court.”

“No arguments from me,” Margo said, leaning back against him. “Okay, come on, Quentin. Don't cock out on us now. Finish reading the prophecy.”

“I'm reading! Okay, um. Great quest, ah. Yeah. He squared his fluffy shoulders and bravely asked, 'is it something I can get done before dinner tomorrow? My cousin is coming and I promised her the best of my winter stores.' And the Napster took a great paw and licked at it, her claws flickering out and shining in the light of the moons overhead, and Kirrel resolutely added, 'I mean, I guess I can tell her we can get together next week instead if it's an emergency and all'.”

“You know, the main reason that I was in there four days is because they can make a simple 'hello' last five minutes,” Margo said, drawing out the words like taffy. “Honestly, I was annoyed at first, but then started to be kinda charming.”

“I really do want to ask you about- um, but it can wait-” Quentin shook his head and turned back to the scroll. He'd shaken some of his hair loose from behind his ear and Eliot's fingers itched to tuck it back. “So, the Napster, uh, she tells him, 'something went horribly wrong and we need High King Margo to come back from exile and save us' and, lo, Kirrel replied 'Oh, hey, I voted for her' and the Napster sighed a heavy sigh and admitted, with grief in her heart over the loss of such a shining light of democratic virtue, 'we all voted for her'.”

“That's my favorite part,” Margo said.

“Literally no one is surprised to hear that,” Quentin said, but fondly, his dimples flashing for a moment. “Uhhh, okay. Then the Napster continued, 'our world has been cut off and, unfortunately, the High King is gonna take her sweet time getting here' and, Kirrel, heartsick over this disastrous news, said, heartily, 'fuck'. But soon, he rallied, for he realized with joy that the Napster had not finished talking. She declaimed-” And Quentin smiled a little, in relief, “Okay, this is the actual prophecy part: 'you must tell the dwarves to look for her. She'll need a powerful watch for traveling to the past. Make sure they know that only High King Margo with her heart of steel will know the date and time to stop the watch. Her companions will-uh. Will screw it up if she lets them'. Sheesh, thanks. Nice vote of confidence there. Anyway, then he wakes up and goes to find the dwarves, amid much flowery prose.”

“I guess now we know why they didn't want to let the rest of us in,” Alice said.

“Yeah, we're officially the screw-up companions,” Eliot said, petting Margo's hair. “Means all the pressure's on you, Bambi. How's that feel?”

“Please, it's no different than any other day.” Putting on a brave show, but he could feel the tension in her shoulders. “So, they gave me the run-down on how to work the watch and it's a pretty straightforward process. It's gonna consume a fuck-ton of ambient, especially since it's gonna be physical and not just a reset like Jane used to do, so we need to find ourselves a good place to create a... they used the phrase 'time bubble'. They had some- well, there's an entire bunny village in there – so I sent a message to Penny. We need to go back to where he dropped us off – the dwarves, they don't really want any more company.”

“So, more hiking,” Alice said. “My greatest joy in life.”

“I'm sure you won't get another blister,” Quentin assured her, with absolutely no evidence on his side.

“How about we wrap your feet?” Eliot suggested, letting go of Margo and beckoning Alice to come over. “Come on, honey, sit down.”

After Alice was taken care of and they'd packed everything up again, they headed back out for the day and a half of travel back to the meeting place with Penny, to find him already there, leaning back against a tree, sleeping.

Margo started to head over to him, but Eliot caught her by the shoulder. “Oh, Bambi, let him catch a few winks. He needs it.” Penny looked like he hadn't so much as changed his clothes since they'd seen him. Eliot couldn't spot his pack anywhere, either.

So, they settled down and waited nearby, talking quietly for about an hour before they heard Penny's voice, low and rough, “Finally. I thought you'd never get here.” He cracked his neck and shook out his shoulders. “This place- it's a fucking colonialist's wet dream. Plover's got Whitespire tricked-out to the high heavens and everyone else is basically eating shit to make it happen. Sometimes literally. So, you know, the sooner we can fix this place, the better.”

“We need somewhere with heavy ambient, where we won't be disturbed,” Margo said. “Find anything like that while you were investigating?”

“Easy,” Penny said, not missing a beat. “The reservoir. Tunnel down to it collapsed. Looks like it happened decades ago. They never bothered to build another way in, probably because it's not full of liquid magic anymore. Just regular ambient, but nothing's being cast down there, so it's built up pretty well.”

“Is- is the garden still there?” Quentin asked, quietly. Eliot tilted his head slightly and looked at Margo for clarification. She shrugged, mouthed 'Fillory thing', which was... not helpful.

“Yeah.” Penny sighed. “Yeah. It's pretty dead right now, though.”

“That's okay,” Quentin said, with a little determined twist to his mouth. “That's actually great.”

Penny took them there and it was... still and quiet and... kinda creepy, honestly. They were at the mouth of a cave overlooking this great empty lake. There was ambient though, for sure. Margo was already doing a look-around to find the best place while Quentin... Q, Alice, and Penny were all walking inside the cave. With a quick look back at Margo, Eliot followed them.

“Are you certain you want to do this?” Alice asked Quentin. Eliot desperately wanted to find out what exactly they were talking about, but wasn't quite prepared to admit that he didn't already know. He wracked his memory, trying to think of a memorable garden in Fillory.

“I'd like to test a theory,” Quentin said.

The tunnel got darker as they went further in, until Eliot gave in and created some light for them all. Quentin just strode in, full of purpose, while Penny and Alice both seemed a little nervous. It wasn't, actually, all that long before they reached the cavern itself, but the strange uncertainty prickling at Eliot's skin made it feel like it took longer. The room was filled with – yes, dead plants, little withered sticks and sagging yellowed leaves. Eliot could also see where the collapse had happened, separating this area from where it must connect to the rest of Whitespire.

“Hey, you heartless flowery little assholes.” Quentin stood directly in front of a plant that he was – apparently – very mad at. Eliot shot Alice a nervous, questioning glance and she gave him a slightly queasy smile. Penny had crossed his arms over his chest and looked... guilty? “You know what? I _do_ love Fillory. I don't just- not just the fucking idea of Fillory. I love- I love it because- because good things can happen here. Good people have lived here. The thing I hated wasn't- it wasn't Fillory. It was people like that goddamn waste of space upstairs wearing a crown he _stole_ from my friends. It's people like that – the ones who think that other people are just- just toys for them to play with – that's what made Fillory ugly for me. But- but. But Fillory isn't just what people like Plover say. It's more than that. And I'm not going to let him or anyone else ruin it for me. I fell in love here.” A brief pause, then, a touch more softly, “Twice. And I had a family here. My friends – Fillory is their home, as much as any place can be, and that makes it my home, too. Fillory is what we decide it is. And I fucking love it, okay?”

About half-way into Quentin's speech, a single orange flower had begun to bloom on the plant... but as he continued, it had gone to seed and sprouted again, more and more bursting out and falling and creating new stems and flowers until it was a little garden all its own. And Quentin, who had started out so fierce, so angry, had a shaky, satisfied smile on his face by the end.

Quentin reached out and hesitantly touched one of the petals on the flower. “I do love it.”

Alice was crying, her hands pressed to her mouth. Penny looked like he was having several emotions that he wished he wasn't and there was obviously a lot wrapped up in this and Eliot would really- really have to ask Quentin about it later. For now, Eliot moved forward, standing on the other side of the flowers from Quentin and said, “So, let's go take it back.”

Quentin's answering smile was- was the most beautiful thing Eliot had ever seen. And he wished that Q could always be _this_ astonishingly happy, and he tucked the memory of the smile away, to think about on a day when Quentin's smiles were harder to come by.

The spell took a bit of set-up, but Margo had gotten all the needed supplies from the dwarves – “in return for some really great trade deals I'm gonna set up once we've saved Fillory and I'm officially unbanished” – and, eventually, they just needed to decide the destination.

“The easiest way to make certain we capture Plover is to go to when we know where he is,” Alice said. “So, we should catch him right after he sneaks away from us in the Drowned Garden.”

“But we were all there,” Penny countered. “Won't that fuck with our personal timelines?”

“Once Margo uses the watch, the past becomes an alternate timeline. We'll split off as soon as we interact with the world,” Alice said. “It doesn't matter if it messes with our history. We're creating a new one.”

“Does that make sense?” Quentin asked. “I mean, when Julia and I went to the past, we were the Witch and the Fool from the books that had already been written.”

“It's complicated,” Alice said. “But the worlds aren't totally aligned, true. So, if you only interact with the past in a single world, you're right, that's kinda baked-in, in a way... but anything _we_ do is definitely going to change things, because we didn't run into our past selves in what we currently remember.”

“If we're already creating a new timeline, why stop at saving Fillory?” Penny suggested. “We could stop that Everett asshole from drinking from the lake too.”

“Everett?” Eliot perked up. “He's the- he's the reason Quentin died, right? Yeah, we should stop him. I like that plan.”

“We can't do any of that.” Margo's voice was... flat. Eliot looked at her and she was- she was forcing down tears, pushing it all inside. “I know when we need to go.”

“Bambi? Why can't- we could save Q.” He reached out for her hands, but she pulled away, forcing her chin up. “We could save Q.”

“Sure. We could go back and try to fix all our problems. I mean-” she shrugged. “-why stop there? Why not go back and- and keep us from ever letting the monster loose? Why not go back and fucking save poor Martin Chatwin from Plover? Because the more you change, the _more changes_ and you can't control how. Jane spent forty lifetimes in that trap, El. Not a game I plan to play. We're here to save Fillory and we gotta stay focused on that. So, that's why I've gotta make the choice. Because it sucks and it hurts that we can't fix everything for the people we love. But we're all here now, together. We survived it. We saved each other. And Twenty-Three over there is all the proof we need to know that doesn't always happen. We can't take the risk.”

And Eliot... he fucking _hated_ it. But she was right.

“So, when are we going, then?” Eliot asked, and he couldn't help from reaching out and bundling Quentin against himself, and Q twitched a little at first, surprised, but then relaxed into Eliot's touch.

“We have to land right after Fillory was cut off. That way, we only create an alternative timeline here. Earth stays intact. The Library stays intact.” She looked at him, all wrapped around Quentin, and gave him an understanding nod. “I'm sorry.”

“You don't need to- Bambi, you have nothing to apologize for,” Eliot told her, but he was petting an apology of his own down Q's arms and waist because he _wanted_ – because if he didn't, he might try to grab the watch from her so that they could- could _fix_ everything- so, he held Q close for a while, and Q let him.

In the background, he could hear Penny and Alice talking to Margo, getting more details about the spell and the circumstances, probably, which Eliot was having a hard time caring about right now. Instead, he focused on the man in his arms, dear and sweet and – thankfully, thankfully – still smiling.

“So, what was that whole thing with the garden?” Eliot asked, because he'd been wondering and- and he wanted to hear Quentin's voice. And so Quentin told him about another speech he'd given, when he'd felt heartsick and tired and cold, and Eliot listened to the words and to the pauses and hesitations. _I wish I could have been there for you_ , he thought, and pressed an open-mouthed kiss against Quentin's forehead that made him sigh and touch Eliot's hand gently and this was push-push-pushing against the line that Eliot had set for himself, between friendship and the somewhat-hazy remembrances of what could lie past friendship for them, but he needed it and he hoped that maybe Q needed it too.

After he felt a little more himself, he squeezed Quentin tight one last time, then forced himself to let go and strode over to the others. “Well, are we doing this thing or not?”

Margo was at the center, and the four of them formed a circle around her. Technically, they only needed two people to successfully create the bubble, but the others could reinforce it. Alice and Eliot stood opposite each other and did the main spellwork for the protective bubble, and once it was in place, Margo slid the time key into the watch, turned it, and then dropped it to hang around her neck as she did a complicated series of tuts and said some words in a language that Eliot honestly didn't recognize. Fillorian dwarven, maybe, since they'd built the watch? That was an interesting thought.

Then the world blurred around them.

Flashes of light and dark, the rush of winds rising up around them and the brief wetness on his skin of rainstorms that must have lasted days in reality, and a head-rush that made it hard to concentrate on the tuts he was doing in time with Alice. He kept his gaze locked with hers, trying to think of it as like- like spotting during a spin. Focus on one solid thing, and Alice's eyes were determined and brilliantly clear, the way she got during complicated spellwork. A force to be reckoned with, as always.

Eliot wasn't sure how long it all lasted, but then Margo was yelling, “Hey, hey, we're good, you guys can stop!” and he relaxed his hands. The ambient was completely blown around them now, sucked in and used up by the spell. Three-hundred years of ambient, eaten up in minutes. Or- or slowly over the course of three centuries, from the reservoir's perspective, he supposed.

“Okay, Fillory just got cut off from the rest of the fountain network,” Margo said, pulling the key out of the watch and tucking the watch away inside her armor. She held the key out towards Quentin, who gave her a curious look, but took it, slipping it into his pocket. “So, let's start working on hunting down the no-longer-future Dark King.”

The reservoir itself was still empty, and still a bit creepy, but as they went back into the cave, the change in time became a lot more obvious. The riot of flowers Q had caused earlier was gone, with only one small, partially-plucked flower blooming on the long stem. The debris was gone, too, and they were able to climb up the narrow winding stairway and into the sounds of celebration.

Margo got some apprehensive looks – but, by far, Eliot got the stronger reaction. They'd all been told he was dead, apparently and then, not very long ago, that possibly he might be saved. Figuring out what various random Fillorians knew was, Eliot knew from experience, something of an exercise in futility, so he just said 'hello' to a bunch of people whose faces he recognized, and followed Margo along to the throne room.

“So, I know technically I'm not supposed to be here-” was how Margo opened, when she strode into the room, but she was soon interrupted by the full force of Fen being thrown at her, making her stagger backwards.

“Oh! Don't be silly,” Fen chided her. “The Lorians signed an agreement with me and then left after you were overthrown. It'll take time for them to hear you're back and I'm sure we'll have sorted out this whole exile nonsense by then. Where'd you get the armor? It looks great. Well, you always look great. You probably want to talk to Josh? He's in the kitchen. He's been stress-baking.” This last was said in that slightly questioning uplifted tone that Fen always used for Earth terminology that she wasn't certain she was using correctly. “He's used up practically our entire supply of flour.”

“Josh?” Margo's voice- hmm. Eliot wasn't sure. She was happy, yes, but also... nervous? Worried? There was something else under the relief. “Yeah, I'll- I'll go talk to him. But first, we have to send the guards out looking for that old guy Q, Alice, and Penny brought with them a little while back – Plover. He's planning a coup against you.”

“That's not good,” Fen said. She glanced around, wildly, her gaze settling on Tick. “Well, let all the guards know!”

“I'll draw a picture of him,” Penny volunteered, and went over to Tick.

Then Fen was giving them all a critical eye. “You look exhausted. From the Incorporate Bond spell? It took a lot out of Josh. The guards will go out and look for Plover, so for the rest of you, I suggest-” She paused and cleared her throat. “I _royally decree_ , that all of you need a good night's sleep.” Then, more hesitantly, she added, “Eliot? I'm glad you're back. Can we- um. Talk in private?”

“Of course,” Eliot said, but before the others left, he snagged Quentin by the arm and whispered, “I need to talk to you about something important, so don't go to sleep right away, okay?” And Quentin nodded, shooting a nervous look over in Fen's direction, for some reason, before he headed out.

Everyone else shuffled out of the throne room in their own time – which was considerable for Abigail Her Slowness and her ever-present companion and translator, Rafe. Fen was absolutely not the picture of patience, practically bouncing in place as they waited, but she did seem determined to stay in the room until it completely cleared out.

“So.” She started, then stopped.

“So?”

“Hmm. Um. Well, so I completed all the traditional mourning ceremonies for you, you know? I did everything. I'm a widow. But now you're not dead. Does that make me not a widow anymore? I mean, there's no precedent. Part of the reason the rituals are so extensive and last so long is to wait out the possibility of a mistaken death so- so no one's ever come back after _all_ the rituals were done. Except now you have. And the problem is- the problem is me. I'm the problem, Eliot.” Fen was pointing to herself rather violently.

“Um- how are you the problem?” Eliot prompted.

“Don't take this as- I don't want to hurt- I kinda liked being a widow? Oh, that sounds awful. I'm a terrible person. I'm the worst wife who ever lived. But the problem. Is. I _did_ complete all the rituals and that means we aren't married anymore. We'd have to get married all over again for it to- to count. So maybe if- if neither of us want to be married. Maybe we just- shouldn't be?” Fen was giving him a rather agonized look and, well. He'd never been the greatest husband, but this was something he could give her. Easily.

“If that's what you want, then you should stay a widow,” Eliot said, reaching out and clasping his hands on her shoulders. “Fen. You were- the best wife you could be, under our particularly strange circumstances. I wasn't the best husband that I could have been. You deserve the chance to- to either find freedom alone or get married to someone who can make you happy. We all deserve that.”

“Oh, that was- that went well,” Fen said, with a relieved smile. “I've been thinking about that, actually, ever since we first thought you were- because it's so wonderful Margo and Josh are in love? I'm so happy for them. I've been planning the wedding- not that either of them have proposed, but I'm hopeful that one of them will. Someday. But, you know, Margo and I have always gotten along. Okay, we haven't _always_ gotten- That's not true. But we have been getting really well this last year while you were- dead. And so, I'm really really really happy that she's probably going to marry Josh once she's officially not exiled anymore. I'm _so happy_. It's the most amazing thing that could ever happen. But I was wondering – because you know – she sometimes has given me the impression that she- so do you think that she could- that she might- in addition to her glorious and- uh, enthusiastic love with Josh, maybe she'd also want... a wife?”

Eliot blinked a little as the freight train of Fen's thought process finally crashed to its conclusion but he immediately said, “No harm in asking her. Worst that can happen is that she'll turn you down.”

Fen's expression collapsed in a way that made it extremely obvious that rejection was, in fact, the very worst thing and that she was dreading it. And, well, Eliot had spent a lot of time in that boat himself, so he couldn't blame her for her fear.

“She's slept with women before, if that helps,” Eliot offered. The anxious look on Fen's face made it clear that this did not help at all and now she was going to compare herself to all possible previous partners and find herself wanting. “Fen. You're a High King now, right? Have some confidence in yourself. You're a fucking catch. She would be lucky to have you.” He dropped a soft kiss on her cheek. “And, you know, courting is a thing. You could woo her.”

“ _Josh_ didn't woo her,” Fen complained, sotto voce. “They just started having sex and then they were together. Ugh. How do you woo people anyway?”

“I really hope there's more to Josh and Margo's love story than that,” Eliot said, but he waved off Fen when it looked like she was actually going to answer. “I'm glad we talked, but I need to go take my own advice now.” He gave her a tight hug before he left.

Quentin was easy enough to find – they'd never assigned his room to anyone else, and he was in there, pacing and talking to himself a little. He startled a bit when Eliot knocked and entered the room, but settled down, pretzeling himself into an awkward sitting position on his bed.

“Hey. Hi. You wanted- um. You wanted to talk about- about something.” And Quentin had definitely been torturing himself over what it could possibly be ever since Eliot had said the words, so Eliot started out by sitting next to him and putting an arm around his shoulders. Quentin instantly tucked himself against Eliot's side, one knee ending up in Eliot's lap, dangerously close to somewhere that would hurt. Eliot patiently helped Quentin unknot himself, making sure his limbs ended up in safer locations.

“Nothing bad,” Eliot said, pitching his tone to be as reassuring as possible. “Just a conversation we've needed to have for a while, but I'm been putting it off because- well, because I can be a bit of a coward sometimes, you know.”

“You are _not_ a coward,” Quentin said, and that was- it made Eliot's heart ache, hearing Q defend him like that. “God, El, you are- you're- you're the opposite of a coward. It's scary how brave you are.”

“In this thing, I'm not very brave,” Eliot said, and it was- it was easier like this, not able to look into Q's eyes. But this wasn't about easy, it was about honest, so he- gently, gently- untangled himself from Q, slid back on the bed and, very hesitantly, met Q's eyes. “Uh, so. How much do you remember now, from your time in the Underworld?”

Quentin wrinkled his nose, shrugged. “Still mostly just flashes. The stupid howling void of my own thoughts. I told you about that already. Bits of working with Penny on finding a way out.”

“Part of me was tempted to wait until you remembered more,” Eliot confessed. “Because I told all this to you before and it was- it was good. But it was also terrifying and I was thinking maybe I would only have to do it once, but-” Quentin looked less scared now, but more thoughtful and considering, which was scary in its own right. Eliot swallowed and took Q's hands in his. “You remember that moment I broke through to you, while I was trapped inside the monster?”

“Of course,” Quentin said. He was rubbing his fingers over Eliot's, soothing and repetitive. “Yeah. Peaches- peaches and plums.”

“The reason I used that phrase was- was because I'd just seen a memory. Of us. Right after. It was- in order to fight through the monster's control, I had to face my worst memories. I saw- a lot of ugly shit. But the ugliest thing I saw was- was when I broke your heart.” Eliot had to take a moment, look away from Quentin's compassionate, lovely, loving face. “That was my biggest regret. It _is_ my biggest regret.”

He dared a glance back at Quentin now and- and the hope there. God, the hope that was still there, after years, after everything Q had gone through.

“We _did_ fall in love while we were working on the mosaic,” Eliot said – reaffirmed – because Quentin must have doubted it, at least Eliot's side of it, after Eliot had turned him down. “But when we had the chance to do it all again, I ruined it. I'd like to- to try and see if it could work for us here. In the real world, with all our friends and all the shitty problems we have deal with every day. So, you know... if it's okay with you, I'd really like to kiss you now.”

Quentin's “yeah” was just a breath really, but Eliot took it and ran with it, yanking Q into his lap and placing his hand gently on the back of Q's neck and pulling him into a soft, soft warm kiss. He felt Q laugh into the kiss and Q's arms wrap tightly around his shoulders. Limpet-octopus-Quentin had been a perennial joke, all the more amusing for needing to explain what both of those creatures were like to Arielle, who had never been further than fifty or sixty miles from her home village and certainly never anywhere near an ocean.

They kissed for- for forever, for at least several minutes, and it was- he'd missed it so much. How had he ever convinced himself that he could live without this? Q's eager mouth and clinging hands and his hair that was perfect to tug at, just a little, just the way he liked.

When they finally broke out of the kiss – the kisses – they were both breathing heavily. “Hey, El?”

“Yeah.” Eliot did his best to relearn the angles of Quentin's shoulders, the slide of hands along his chest and sides, the perfect curve of his jaw. “What- uh, what is it?”

“Um. So, it's kinda been, like, a fucking long time since I had so much as a half-chub-” And there was a world of sadness in there, wrapped up in over a year of depression and pain, and Eliot would- he would do his best to help unwind it all, when they had time and Q had talked more of it over with his therapist. “-so, um. I don't wanna be pushy but- maybe we could be naked?”

“Of course, baby Q,” Eliot said. Instantly, immediately. Yes, of course. “You have a lot of catching up to do, huh? Let daddy take care of you.” And that made Quentin laugh, the way it always did – amused but never ever mocking – and Eliot pressed his thumbs against Q's dimples.

It was messy at first, clumsy. They were both out of practice. Quentin wanted to take his clothes off himself, which just led to him getting stuck inside his own shirt for a good thirty seconds before he finally relaxed and let Eliot take over, put Q where he needed to be, got them both undressed and stretched out on the bed, Q underneath him for right now. Sex with Quentin was always- always a little bit like this. Awkward while Q was stuck in his own head, but once he let go and followed his instincts, followed Eliot's lead, everything clicked right into place. Even after fifty years, it had been a bit like that.

If he could only have this for another fifty years, Eliot would never ask for anything else in his life.

He had missed- missed the way Quentin went pliant and easy under his kisses. Missed the feeling of Quentin's dick in his hand, how Q reacted like every simple thing Eliot did was the most amazingly acrobatic sex in the world. God, missed the _sounds_ that Q made, quiet but all the more rewarding because it felt like every noise had to fight its way through Quentin's embarrassment in his own pleasure. Making Q come was the first order of business, Eliot not able to get that shy confession out of his head. Not being able to get hard was- it could sting the pride pretty badly, so Eliot poured all his love and his talent and affection into his hands, into teasing Quentin to the edge, keeping him there until he tumbled over. And the tiny little “ _El_ ” that Quentin whimpered as he came had a pained relief mixed into the joy.

Then Quentin melted against the bed and he was- he was laughing until he cried. So Eliot wiped his hand off on the bedspread and laid himself on top of Quentin, holding him down safe and cared for. Eliot was still hard, but it was easy enough to ignore while he kissed away Q's tears and whispered soft sweet things against his skin. This was- this was one of the things that had been most precious about what he'd had with Quentin before – how Quentin let Eliot take care of him. Brave, determined Q trusting Eliot to be careful.

They still had a lot to talk about, but Quentin was... exhausted so, for now, Eliot held him and watched as he blinked slowly a few times, then drifted off to sleep.

 


	3. light gets in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot embraces the beauty of all life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sex gets explicit after "the two of you are pushovers." and then ends before "I am an endless fountain of surprise and delight".

Eliot brushed Quentin's hair back, rubbed his thumb over the arch of an eyebrow, then down to smooth over his stubble, trace the lines of his neck and adam's apple. Quentin slept on, instinctively turning towards Eliot's touch, his face relaxed and slack. Eliot pressed a knuckle against the dip of Q's collarbone, stroked lightly. When Q had first come back, this new body of his hadn't looked quite right but, over time, he'd worn it in. Or maybe he'd just fit into it better as he learned how to take care of himself again, piece by piece.

Eliot hadn't bothered much with anger while Quentin had been dead. It had seemed pointless. _We all let him down_ , Margo had said, and the end result had been devastating enough that Eliot hadn't seen much reason to apportion blame. And yet...

_If I had been here, I wouldn't have let it happen._

They weren't words he'd been cruel enough to say to any of the rest of them, but he felt it now, in his bones. There wasn't any use in holding a grudge. None of them, not Margo or Julia or Alice or Kady or even Penny... none of them would let Q fall by the wayside again, the way they had when Eliot had been gone. And yet...

This was the secret he hadn't been wise enough to realize, when they'd first gotten back from the mosaic. His love for Quentin had been something he'd been certain he'd ruin. Q's love for him had been something he'd been terrified to trust. So he'd run from the scariest parts, hidden himself in the friendship so he couldn't destroy the rest of it, so that he could keep that perfect memory of a beautiful life together and not taint it with a future that could get fucked up. He wouldn't make that mistake a second time. No more running. He couldn't protect what he loved by abandoning it. He could only protect it – protect Quentin – by standing beside him.

Quentin napped for maybe half an hour, then he yawned widely, jaws cracking as he shivered himself awake again. He blinked up at Eliot, eyes wide and an embarrassed flush rising on his cheeks. “Oh. Shit. Sorry, El.” A faltering hand rose toward Eliot's face and he twisted to press his mouth against Q's fingers, open and welcoming. Quentin bit down on his lower lip, his blush spreading. “Um. I'm not sure if- if I can- um. Get it up again. But I can still- you know.” His fingers flexed against Eliot's mouth, dipped in slightly, then out again as he pulled his hand away. “Um. If you want.”

“I _always_ want,” Eliot said, but he tucked himself down along Quentin's side, running his fingers up Q's waist, sliding his leg over Quentin's hip to keep them pressed close together. “But it's not urgent. I came here planning... hmm, planning an emotional confession and while I certainly don't object to nudity, especially not yours, I do still want to talk.”

“...yeah. Sure.” Quentin sounded dubious, but willing.

“So, I was just talking to Fen-”

“Yeah, I know,” Quentin interrupted, forehead creasing in confused lines. “I was there when she asked you if-”

Eliot raised an eyebrow. Quentin shushed.

“She went through all these elaborate mourning rituals for me, back when she thought I was dead, so she's legally a widow now.” Eliot paused, for effect. Quentin looked vaguely annoyed but, well, that worked too. “What I'm _saying_ is... I'm not a husband anymore. I don't have a fiancé. I'm not even a king. I'm just Eliot Waugh, grad student drop-out. Not quite as impressive, but it comes with fewer strings. Like getting to make more of my own choices about who... who I can love.”

Now, Quentin seemed to understand where he was going, a tiny smile playing at the corners of his lips.

“There are some downsides to being just Eliot Waugh. He's kinda a fuck-up sometimes.” Eliot touched his finger to Quentin's mouth, stopping the inevitable protest. “It's true. I don't want to get all caught up in honeymoon forgetfulness here. I screwed up by not trusting you. You're still mad about it sometimes and I deserve it. I can't- I can't promise to let you run head-long into every dangerous thing we stumble across but I-” he took in a steadying breath, “I _can_ promise that I will talk to you if I have problems. No more shooting first and answering questions later. I'm sorry, Q. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you before everything that happened at Castle Blackspire and- and I'm sorry I didn't trust you to know your own feelings when we got home from the mosaic.” Eliot took his hand away from Q's mouth, wrapped it around the back of his neck instead and brought him in for a lingering kiss. “Okay. Okay. Your turn.”

“Um, wow, I...” Quentin rested his hand against Eliot's hip, pressing his fingertips into the skin. Not hard enough to hurt. “I've been talking things out with Roxann-” Q's fucking miracle of a therapist, who deserved every bit of the fancy spellwork Eliot was doing for her as payment. “-and I'd. Um. I'd kinda thought that I was like. I was like Margo. For you. A friend. A _best_ friend. That you have sex with sometimes. That anything else was- was something I'd made up. She, um. She never really took sides on it? She just. Listened to me talk about- about what I thought you were. What I'd wanted- what-” Quentin's face worked, twisting up as he tried to get out the right words, and Eliot pet gently through his hair and waited patiently. “I didn't- um. I didn't fall in love with you at the mosaic, El, not- not _just_ there. It started- um. It started before. It was when- when you finally came home from Fillory, with Fen and Fray. I knew then or, um. Started to know. But I couldn't- I couldn't tell you that afterwards when- when you were saying you didn't want- and you had- you had a wife that you didn't- didn't really want, but a boyfriend... a fiancé that maybe you did- did want. That you _would_ choose. You had- choices, like you said. Better choices than a- than a whiny supernerd with a broken brain.”

And now Eliot was the one with Q's fingers pressed against his mouth, to stop _his_ protests against Q insulting himself like that.

“I convinced myself that I was- I was okay with being like Margo.” Quentin gave him a smile that was shaky at the edges, hand lowering to curl around Eliot's jaw. “You love her so much. And- and being your friend that you like to screw sometimes was better than- maybe better than being your- your ex-boyfriend. Because my-um. My experience with being someone's ex is that you- you _lose_ them for a long time. Not just- not just with Alice. Before, too. That was what always happened. So, you know. I made myself be happy with being your friend and nothing- um, nothing else that I'd thought maybe it was when we were at the mosaic. As much as I could.”

“Funny thing is my brain was doing the same thing to me,” Eliot said, reaching up and clasping Quentin's hand, interlacing their fingers and pressing a kiss against Q's knuckles. “My most recent boyfriend before the mosaic was- well. Not even real. Just a fantasy thrown at me by the fucking Beast.”

“What about King Idri?” Quentin asked, all soft vulnerable eyes.

“I liked him. Marrying him sounded a hell of a lot better than killing him or, let's be realistic, more likely _getting_ killed by him,” Eliot said. “Maybe it could have been love, someday. It wasn't yet. I didn't fall in love at the mosaic, either. Not- not all the way. It started before.” He pressed another playful kiss to Quentin's fingers. “I'm not gonna tell you when. Not yet. I have to preserve _some_ shred of mystery, my darling sweet Q.”

“I missed that,” Quentin breathed out. “I know that you don't- you don't want to try to recreate our life back there. It was... it was so different than our lives now, even when we're back in Fillory. But I miss- I miss the silly pet names and the- how soft you could be.”

“I resent the implication that I'm ever soft,” Eliot teased, though he was now, mostly. Intimate and dear as this conversation was, it was not _that_ kind of talk. More seriously, he added, “I miss it, too. We- there were a lot of things in our life there that I- I hadn't even thought of as a possibility before. Being a- not just a father, but a _good_ one. Having a... a full life with someone, in every way we could.”

“Do you ever miss Arielle?” Quentin asked, quietly. “Was she- was her being part of our lives something you actually wanted, or was it something you gave me because you were afraid you weren't enough?”

“Both, I think,” Eliot said, because honesty was the most important gift he could offer right now. “I do miss her. I enjoyed having her around. Watching you two fuck was- it was hot. But. Yeah. I did think being with me would be easier for you if it wasn't _just_ me. Because there was this- this annoyingly persistent voice at the back of my mind that reminded me that you'd- that you and _Margo_ were the ones who started screwing, that night, and I happened to wake up in the middle. It could have easily just been you and her, and maybe everything else would have been the same. Maybe I was- was an unnecessary accessory.”

“ _El._ ” Quentin hesitated, then said, “Margo and I... we were worried about you, after- after Mike. And we felt like shit over the fact that we- we had no fucking clue how to help. I think we both just wanted to feel close to someone that night. So, yeah. You were kinda the whole reason it started in the first place. I don't- if I hadn't been dating Alice, I wouldn't have freaked out like that. I would have been... probably a little insecure over actually getting to sleep with the two hottest people at Brakebills, sure, but I wouldn't have- I was mad at myself for fucking over the girl... the woman I loved. For ruining a relationship I wanted to make work. I'm sorry I took it out on you two. You deserved better.”

“I forgave you for _that_ a long time ago,” Eliot said. “So did Bambi. You know that.”

“I do.” Quentin pushed himself up on the bed to press a kiss against Eliot's jawline. “Under your prickly shells, the two of you are pushovers.” His tongue flicked out, light and teasing. “So, we done with the serious talk yet?”

“Impatient.” Eliot pressed Quentin against the bed with two lazy fingers. Not anything close to enough to move Q if he'd actually tried to resist, but Q let himself be pinned down, just as if Eliot had been using his whole body to do it. “What do greedy boys get for pushing the line?”

“Put on their knees?” Quentin suggested, tilting his head back against the bed to show off the line of his neck. “I mean, you gotta show them who the boss is, right?” Eliot glanced down quickly, assessing. Q's dick was- was soft, but he was already breathing harder and his face was eager and willing. Q wanted this, even if he was shaking off the last year and change. Okay, then. Eliot leaned down and stole a kiss – _stole_ , no matter how much Quentin loved it, because this was the game and Q was the prize. Eliot placed his hand over Quentin's throat, felt the nervous, desperate swallow. He felt pretty fucking nervous, too, though he did his best not to let it show.

“Do I really need to prove something we both already know?” Eliot stroked his thumb along Quentin's jaw, pressure light but the implications unmistakable. It was startling, though, how the overlay of the memories from the mosaic was affecting him. He was beginning to remember – in increasingly vivid detail – all the things that Q best liked in bed. And yet, and yet... the reality was still almost shocking. Quentin Coldwater, under his hands, pliant and easy.

Some boys just wanted to be taken care of, pulled apart by someone willing to put them back together again afterwards. And that was- that was definitely something Eliot could do. Something Eliot enjoyed doing.

Eliot leaned down, bumped his nose against Quentin's affectionately, then took his mouth in another hard, demanding kiss where Q yielded, yielded, yielded, giving everything up to him.

He brushed a dozen feather-light kisses against Quentin's face, then sat back and looked him over with a critical eye. Quentin squirmed under it, under being examined, trapped between the fear of being found wanting and the need to be accepted and praised. “Q, sweetheart, safeword check-in.”

Quentin took in a sharp breath, looked inexplicably teary-eyed for a moment, then blinked it away and said, “Ember. But I'm good.” He paused, concentrating, then added, “And, uh, if I can't talk, we'll prep that finger-snapping alarm beforehand.” The first time they'd talked about safewords at the mosaic, Quentin had said it was ridiculous – why would he ever want Eliot to stop? But he'd picked one anyway, to humor Eliot. And, because he was Quentin, he'd made it fucking ridiculous, because _why not_ make his safeword the name of the god he'd killed. Quentin flexed his hands thoughtfully. “Should we do that?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Eliot said, cheerfully, then his breath caught and he had a sudden flash of... of singing and crying and throwing away memories because they'd believed Quentin was- was _destroyed_ , every piece, every atom eaten by the Seam, that there was no light, no hope of recovering him. Even this far out, it made his chest feel cold and... and empty. It made his hands shake. Eliot was pulled out of the thought by Quentin's mouth on his, tender and soft. “I'm sorry. I just-”

“I know,” Quentin said, gently. “I remember that part now. I watched it happened.”

“If we do manage to get our Penny back, I'm gonna punch him in the face for making you see that,” Eliot said, and maybe he meant it. “That was- that was the capper on the worst week in our goddamn lives. And he didn't- he didn't show you all the times we tried to find you in the Underworld, didn't show you the spells we cast trying to locate your fucking soul or shade or- or anything. Right?”

“No, he didn't,” Quentin agreed. “But he also helped me get _out_ of the Underworld once I made it clear that's what I wanted. I'm not mad at Penny for what he did after I died, El. He thought he was helping a friend.”

Eliot nodded, kissed Quentin again, trying to recapture the mood. This was Quentin, alive and well, under his hands, under his body, wanting to be touched, wanting to be loved. His mouth, soft and inviting. His hands, reaching up to grip Eliot's hips. The whole perfect compact size of him, where Eliot could press him into the mattress and kiss him senseless.

He'd gone partially soft, thinking about the past, but he was hardening again now, rubbing his cock against Quentin's stomach. Eliot was almost always bigger than the guys he fucked, but the comparison was even more stark than usual now, with Q's dick delicate where it lay between his thighs. Eliot reached down, caressed him lightly. Quentin shivered, his hips bucking up. There were a couple of twitches but that was all, and Eliot suspected Quentin was right and he wouldn't be able to get it up again tonight.

“Let's set up the alarm spell,” Eliot said, and Quentin's eyes sparkled with excitement. He held his hands up in front of Eliot, who wrapped his fingers around Q's wrists and said the sentences in ancient greek as Quentin did the small, restricted tuts of the cooperative spell. There was a flash of golden light that looped around Quentin's knuckles as Eliot let go.

“You gonna use telekinesis or...?” Quentin asked. There were any number of things around that could be used as a make-shift gag, but the fact that Quentin had asked the question that way made it clear what he wanted.

“Yeah, baby, it'll be all me. No artificial additives or sweeteners.”

“You are such a dork,” Quentin said, fondly. “Come on, daddy, I need you to fuck me until I can't see straight.” Eliot went still for a moment, everything inside him lighting up, then he pet desperately at Quentin's shoulders and neck, leaned down and kissed that lovely amusement right off Q's face.

It wasn't like remembering how to ride a bike – it was more like finally coming up for air after spending too long underwater. There was a rush of exhausting, exhilarating joy, a relieved happiness that bubbled though Eliot's entire body, because how could anyone be so lucky that they could get a second chance at _this_? “You are fucking perfect,” Eliot confessed into Quentin's mouth, kissed him again so that he couldn't argue. “You are the sweetest, most perfect boy.”

Eliot sat up, pulled Quentin up with him, tugged Q's hands into the air and, with the lightest of mental touches, wrapped his thoughts around Quentin's wrists and forearms, holding them in place.

He leaned forward, touched his finger to Quentin's mouth, and left a tiny piece of his magic there, gently holding Quentin's lips closed together. Before, there had always been a miniature battle inside Eliot when he did this, because he loved to hear Q's voice but Quentin adored not being allowed to talk. It was easy right now, because Eliot wanted nothing more in this moment than to give Quentin everything they'd both been missing since those decades together in Fillory.

Quentin's eyes were dark with need, already starting to lose their focus.

Eliot lavished affection on Q's body, used his mind to tug Quentin up onto his knees, expose all of him for Eliot to touch and kiss and adore. The last time they'd... he could remember fucking Quentin when they were both old and white-haired, needing to take care due to fragile bones, aging bodies. Could remember that first time at the mosaic – _on_ the mosaic, Quentin's embarrassed laughter when he came half a minute into Eliot blowing him. Everything in between, Quentin as his body changed over the years, as he grew comfortable with himself.

“I wanna grow old with you again,” Eliot told Quentin's chest, kissing a nipple and not looking up. “I want- I want a family.” He ran his hands over Q's sides, pressing his thumbs against Quentin's hipbones. “I want a life with you. On Earth or here in Fillory. Wherever you want.”

He worked his way around Quentin until he was behind him, kissing the back of his neck. He could see Quentin's hands clenching and flexing above his head, nothing close to snapping his fingers. Eliot kissed down the line of Quentin's spine, stroked along his shoulder blades, leaned his forehead against the strong muscles of Quentin's back and just breathed, dizzy and so in love he could drown in the feeling. It was odd, not seeing Quentin's tattoo here, on his new body, but Eliot would get used to it.

Eliot traced the lines on Quentin's skin of where the tattoo used to be, imagining the swooping dark curves. Kissed right where the open spot of the 'Q' had been, or as close as he could remember. Then he twisted his fingers together on his right hand, rolled his thumb over the back of his middle and pointer fingers, and pressed his now-wet fingers down at the entrance to Q's body. He would be new here, too, so Eliot took his time. He could hear soft noises in the back of Quentin's throat as he pressed a finger up and inside, careful and gentle.

He braced his other arm around the front of Quentin's chest, and leaned into finger-fucking him, pushing and twisting and exploring. Quentin wiggled against him, against the soft, solid bonds of Eliot's magic holding him in place. It was terrifyingly intimate, the trust Quentin was willing to place in him, despite knowing what Eliot's magic was capable of doing if he lost control. He tried to show his gratitude in the kisses he dotted all over Quentin's skin, in the way he touched him. Eliot took his time opening Quentin up, going all the way up to four fingers, because this body had never been fucked.

Then he held his thumb and pointer finger together in a circle, ran the circle backwards up and over his own dick while muttering in french, and a gentle glow settled protectively over his skin.

“Okay, baby, let me know if you aren't ready,” Eliot murmured into Quentin's ear. He gave it a moment, looking up and watching Quentin's fingers. No snap.

Reassured, he slid inside.

He'd spent so much time stretching him that Quentin opened up easy for him, let him in like Q's body still remembered how often they'd done this in another life. The thought punched a laugh out of him, shaky and warm.

_Let me in, let me stay, let me come home._

His mind was tangled and needy, desperate.

From this angle, Eliot couldn't fuck hard, but he could go deep, and slow, and loving. He pressed his chest up against Quentin's back, kissed where his neck met his shoulders. He whispered against Quentin's skin, words too overwhelmed and foolish to ever make it out of his mouth when he wasn't buried inside Quentin's body.

Eliot kissed the side of Quentin's face, glanced down – Q's cock was still soft but his face was blissed out, eyes closed and mouth slightly parted, as much as it could under the steady touch of Eliot's magic.

He kept up the measured pace as long as he could, until his whole body was screaming at him to go faster. He slid a hand up so that he could hold Quentin's wrists together, and released his magic. Immediately, a moan escaped from Quentin's mouth, and his head fell back onto Eliot's shoulder.

“Oh, _fuck_ , Eliot, please, I- I- I-, _please_ -”

Quentin's words tumbled over themselves, stumbled and stuttered.

“It's okay, sweetheart,” Eliot soothed, placing more soft kisses along the line of Q's jaw. “I've got you. You don't have to do any of the work. Just let go.”

A shuddering breath, more helpless babble.

Eliot pushed Quentin down, pressed his hands against the sheets until Quentin was clutching at them, then settled his hands over Q's hips, slowly pulled back and thrust in, harder than before, balls slapping against Quentin's ass. Quentin was noisy as fuck now, like the sounds he hadn't been able to make when he was gagged all had to come out at once.

Now that he didn't have to focus part of his mind on keeping Quentin bound up and quiet, Eliot gave himself permission to lose control. Let himself slam inside, rough and greedy, let himself take what he needed as Quentin's body welcomed him, gave effortlessly.

The rhythm quickened, his pulse racing, and Eliot knew he wouldn't last.

He'd longed for this so long, with so little hope of ever having Quentin back. Getting it again was almost too much, overwhelming in the best possible way. He dug his fingers into Q's hips, to leave bruises that would make Quentin smile later when he found them, and fucked Q hard enough to make the bed rattle against the wall.

It didn't take long for the wave to crest up inside him, spilling out in a rush of pleasure and bone-deep satisfaction that left him slumped over Quentin, wrung out but giddy.

“I'll last longer next time,” he promised, stroking through sweat-dampened hair. There was a mumble of wordless agreement from Q, nearly lost where his face was smashed against the sheets. Eliot waited as his cock softened, then gently pulled out, the spell he'd cast earlier taking his semen out at the same time. Eliot pressed his middle finger against his thumb, snapped his fingers, and incinerated the floating ball of come with shimmering light.

Gently, he tipped Quentin over onto his side.

“Tired, baby?” He didn't really need to ask, but some greedy part of him gloried in Quentin's sleepy 'uh-huh'. “You'll wanna brush your teeth first. Come on, up you go.” He smacked Quentin's ass with a sharp, loud crack.

“Ugh, fuck you. I'll get up in a minute,” Quentin mumbled, rolling onto his back and giving Eliot a baleful glare. “You just want to see if I'll walk funny from having your ridiculously huge dick up my ass.”

“I mean... yeah,” Eliot agreed, heart overflowing. “First time that new body of yours has been dicked down. You're _literally_ a born-again virgin I deflowered. Didn't get to do that last time.”

“How is it possible you had a kink I didn't already know about?” Quentin stared up at the ceiling. He was scratching absent-mindedly at his stomach, and he looked so content and relaxed.

“I am an endless fountain of surprise and delight,” Eliot said. Quentin laughed.

Eventually, Eliot was able to sweet-talk Quentin into getting up and going to the bathroom to get ready for the night. Getting settled for bed with him, and then cuddling down for sleep afterwards... they were such small things, but Eliot found himself tucking each moment away to thumb over and remember later. He slept well, with only abstract dreams.

The next morning, though, was a genuinely bad day – the first one since their trip to Fillory had started – and Quentin woke grumpy and surly and had to be talked into taking his pills. They were starting to run low – they'd tried to stock up as much as they could for this extended trip, but they'd always known there was a chance they would run out before they were able to get back. Hopefully, what Q had left would hold out until they were able to reconnect with Earth.

Things only got worse at breakfast. The guards hadn't found Christopher Plover or any signs of where he'd gone.

“I knew we should have jumped back to an earlier point,” Alice had started-

And then _that_ devolved into a fucking three-hour argument that was goddamn pointless because it was _done_ , and fighting about it now was _meaningless_ , but no one had wanted to hear that, so the sharp tones and not-quite-yelling had continued way too fucking long. It got so bad that Twenty-Three peaced out entirely, saying that he was going to find a quiet place to astral in and check on Earth, see if enough time had passed there for them to try reconnecting Fillory back to the fountain network.

The rest of them attempted a locator spell and the magic went ape-shit on them, pinging a hundred spots on the map in less than a minute. It had, apparently, latched onto to every person who matched even a single factor in Plover's description. Trying to narrow the spell down was less than successful.

“Magic is too high-strung right now,” Josh said. He was sitting on the arm of Margo's chair, which bothered Eliot in ways he wasn't sure how to express. “We have to wait a while, figure out the change in circumstances so we can account for it. Better slow down and do it right, than hurry and fuck everything up.”

“Hoberman's right,” Margo said, and Eliot couldn't – quite – stop from mouthing the words sarcastically back to himself. “I'm not a fan of standing around twiddling our thumbs up our asses either, but with magic juked out like this, we don't have a choice.”

Everything else that had changed while Eliot was gone had been overshadowed by the immediate loss of Q, but this was the first time he'd seen Hoberman interact with Margo since Eliot had found out that they'd apparently fallen in love while Eliot was busy being possessed by a monster. Margo had talked about Josh, but in that glancing way that meant she was guarding her heart, even from Eliot. It was the one major thing about his time away that Eliot still didn't have any real context for in his head.

The time change was also fucking with Eliot a little. Josh hadn't been on Earth for any of the shared mourning the rest of them had gone through. He hadn't been part of the desperate effort to bring Q back to life. Fuck, he probably didn't even know Q had _died_ – not unless Margo had already told him – and so there was something jarring about how closely he cleaved to Margo, like he was still a natural part of her life and not someone she'd been away from for months.

Or maybe Eliot was just being a selfish, possessive asshole.

With the search for Plover at an standstill, Margo and Fen went off to talk about how to officially get Margo un-banished. Eliot wanted to tug Quentin away for a quickie but one look at Q's face made it clear _that_ the idea wouldn't be welcome right now, so instead, reluctantly, he went to talk to Josh fucking Hoberman, who had apparently made the breakfast they'd all eaten that morning. The fact that it had been delicious somehow only managed to annoy Eliot more.

“Hey, man, good to see you,” Josh greeted him, with a shit-ton of enthusiasm. Jesus. “The axes worked, huh? That's wonderful. Margo went to a lot of trouble to get them.”

“I know,” Eliot said, not able to keep the ice entirely out of his voice. “You and Bambi have fun catching up last night?” He studied Josh's reaction as subtly as he could manage. A dopey grin. So, yeah, they'd fucked.

“She was glad to see me,” Josh said. “Like, _amazingly_ glad.” He leaned in, as if confiding a secret, and added, “Five times glad, if you know what I mean.”

Eliot forced himself to smile. “Got the general idea, thanks.”

“It's a shame you missed the big cooperative spell,” Josh said, still grinning. “That was a rush. I'm honestly still buzzing from it. It's hard to believe it all went so well. Normally, we get boned in the third act, you know? I mean, I guess we've got to deal with this Plover thing and magic being on overdrive, but they both seem relatively minor, after dealing with gods and monsters.”

“Yeah,” Eliot agreed, faintly. “Lucky us.”

And then Josh patted him on the shoulder, friendly and open, and wandered off in Margo's direction.

Quentin was still sulking in the corner, radiating 'I will kill anyone who touches me' vibes, but Alice was holding her hands out to examine the ambient in the room and muttering about magic, so Eliot took it upon himself to pull her out of her own head.

“Hey, buttercup, figure out what we need to change yet?” Eliot tugged on one of the messy braids in her hair, a part of him feeling tender that she hadn't taken them out yet, even though he'd done them yesterday. Alice blinked and dropped her hands, giving him a confused but sincere smile.

“Eliot! Not yet, but I'm getting there. The problem isn't the power but the inconsistency.” She wrinkled her nose and sighed a little. “We can't predict when it'll blow out. It seems like our disciplines are easy enough to keep a handle on – my light spells are holding steady – but anything we don't have complete control over gets messy when it hits the extra wrinkles of magic that are flowing out. That's why the locator spell didn't work. We have to send it outward, and it runs into bubbles of overpowered magic that throw off the circumstances.”

“You'll figure it out,” Eliot said, and she tilted her chin up towards him, her smile widening. “Um, hey, we should probably talk about something a bit more personal, though.”

“Q?” She didn't look surprised. “Did the two of you- I mean, please don't tell me the details, but...”

“Yeah, we did,” Eliot said, gently. She nodded. Her eyes looked glassy for a moment, then she blinked it away.

“I figured you would,” she said, and her voice was nearly steady. “His choice was- uh. Pretty clear. It has been for a while. You were all he thought about, back when you were possessed. He was obsessed with trying to save you, wouldn't listen to any plan that might risk your life. I'm not surprised. I'm not.”

“Are you okay?” Eliot asked.

“Are you asking as my rival or... or as my friend?” After she asked, she bit down on her lip, like she was already regretting the question.

“Your friend,” Eliot said, firmly. “You can't get rid of me now, Quinn. Not- not unless you want to.”

She stared at him for a handful of heartbeats, and then his arms were full of soft, clinging girl. He pet at her hair and shoulders and made soothing sounds. He kissed the top of her head before he let go.

“Honestly, having three friends right now sounds like a better deal than one boyfriend anyway,” Alice said, wiping the tears out of her eyes. “I- um. I'm really glad you and Margo are my friends. I'll always hate why it happened, but having the two of you around made the last few months slightly less terrible. Do you think... do you think Margo might be okay if I stuck around Fillory after this is all over? I never got the chance to enjoy being here before, what with...everything.”

“I know she would be thrilled,” Eliot said. “You sure you want to give up the Library?”

“Margo was right,” Alice said. “I hate the Library. Working there hasn't made me hate it any less.”

“Then you should definitely stay in Fillory. You deserve to be happy,” Eliot said. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Okay, I'm going to go brave certain death and talk to Quentin, despite what a thundercloud his face is. Wish me luck.”

“I have a sneaking suspicion you'll survive somehow,” Alice said, and she pushed him away, smiling again.

He sat down on a chair a little ways away from Quentin and asked, quietly, “Color?”

Quentin blew out an annoyed breath of air, glared at his own hands, and muttered, “Brown.” Worthless and hopeless and angry at himself. Brown days had meant that not a lot of work got done on the mosaic. Arielle had always been better at dealing with Q on brown days than Eliot had, but that was- well. Long ago and far away.

“Anything specific?” Eliot asked.

“I can't stop thinking about Plover,” Quentin said, with a quick, fierce hand gesture that kinda looked like he was trying to strangle someone. “That he's out there and we can't find him. That we let him go after everything he'd done, because we were too distracted by the threat in front of us to pay attention to him. We actually let him sit around in the fucking apartment with us and make battle plans about how to deal with the monster.” He made an ugly, disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “I sat there and let him _lecture_ me about Fillory because I was too goddamn tired to argue the point. He grabbed one of my books and signed it, El, like his signature should mean something to me, after everything I know about him. And I just... just fucking _let_ him. Because I was... I was just so tired of fighting.” Quentin sighed out, and slumped down in his chair, and the anguish was still there, but the prickliness had faded enough that Eliot risked reaching out and pressing his hand against Q's knee.

“I'm sorry, Q,” Eliot said, soft as he could manage. “How tired are you today?”

Quentin's mouth twisted helplessly and he didn't answer directly. “We still don't even know a way to kill him.”

“With the combined forces of Alice's brain and Margo's capacity for violence, we'll find a way,” Eliot said. “We'll keep him from hurting anyone else, Quentin, I promise.”

“Jesus, what a shitty morning after this has been for you,” Quentin said, pressing his hands down against his thighs.

“Don't worry. I have enough faith in my own sexual prowess not to take it personally.” Eliot reached up and brushed Quentin's hair off his forehead, finally – _finally_ – earning himself a smile for the day. Small and quivering at the edges, but real. “Some days are just like that.”

Eliot could see the self-flagellating argument rise up in Quentin's eyes, the urge to tell Eliot that he deserved better, deserved a boyfriend who didn't have 'days like that', but then Quentin hesitated, studied Eliot's face. Nodded and sighed and reached out for Eliot's hand. “I keep hoping they'll go away eventually, but they never did stop, did they? Decades of living in a magical world with a family that loved me, and I still had days like this sometimes. I just- um. I really hate my brain. You know, the White Doe, back after Alice died... she told me that I would always find my way to sadness again. Even if everything in my life is perfect, I'll always end up here.”

Eliot stroked Quentin's hand, rubbed his fingers along Quentin's wrist, and listened.

“I fought so hard to live,” Quentin said, pulling one of his legs up onto the chair like a shield against the world. He didn't let go of Eliot's hand. “Shouldn't that matter? Shouldn't that make a difference? Make it easier?” He twisted around and settled his chin on his knee, which looked like it should be uncomfortable for his back, but Quentin was like a cat that way and it never seemed to bother him. Even as an old man, he'd been flexible. “I told you about- um. The first time I tried to-”

“Yeah,” Eliot said, when Quentin's words froze in his throat. “You told me.”

“My- I don't think I told you this part, but my mom. When my dad asked me why, my mom said I was just trying to get attention. That I was being- uh. Selfish. Lashing out at her for the divorce. She made it- made it sound like it was all about her, you know? And I- I guess I worry that when I. When I'm like this, I'm making everything about me, the way that she does.” Quentin's mouth twitched. “I know I can be self-centered sometimes. Believe that I'm- uh. That my feelings are the whole world.”

“You aren't your mother, Quentin,” Eliot said. “Having the occasional selfish thought doesn't make you a bad person. And, yeah, you used to be more of a brat-” he flicked Quentin lightly on the nose, “-but you've grown a lot since I first met you.”

“Roxann says I might have overcorrected,” Quentin said, sheepishly. “Went too far the other way. She uh- she said that after I told her about Castle Blackspire.”

“I won't argue with that,” Eliot said. “Do you think you might be finding more of a middle-ground, talking to her?”

“I hope so,” Quentin said. “I've had to bring up- bring up a lot of old shit I thought didn't matter to me anymore. I thought I didn't- um. That I didn't care about being the big hero, you know? But that's exactly what I- that's kinda the fantasy I played out. When I- ah. When I fixed the mirror. I was the big hero. Saved the day. Saved the-uh. Saved the girl.” He shrugged. “And all it cost was- was something I didn't really care about. At the time. It felt like I _won_. Right up until I was in an elevator and the doors opened and I saw Penny – our Penny – and realized what happened.” He let out a shaky breath. “Eliot, I'm still not sure if I can tell the difference between a risk that's worth taking and one that isn't. I know I- I scared you. With the time key. You felt like it was Castle Blackspire all over again. Um. You said, last night. That you would talk to me if you had problems with a choice I was making. Instead of just trying to override it. And I want to-uh. I promise I'll listen to you, when you say- when you say I'm risking my life without a good enough reason.”

“Thank you,” Eliot said. Very sincerely. “Q, do you think it might- if you ever want me to come to one of your sessions, do a... do a couples' counseling thing. I would. I will.”

Quentin gave him a shy smile. “Yeah? Okay. I'll tell Roxann that when we get back. Um. After I tell her we're a couple now, I guess.” There was the slightest hint of a question in Quentin's voice at that, and Eliot hated himself a little, for all the times he'd downplayed his own feelings to protect himself from getting hurt, all the times he'd dismissed Q's feelings because of the bullshit in Eliot's own brain that told him he didn't deserve something genuine in his life.

“We're a couple,” Eliot said, with all the authority of his king-voice. Lifted up Q's hand and kissed the back of it theatrically, very knight-errant and dashing. “You'll have to get used to me taking up all the space in the bathroom, all over again.”

“You'll have to get used to me stealing your shampoo, all over again,” Quentin teased back, and there was a lightness in his eyes now that made Eliot's heart squeeze tight in his chest. “And leaving wet towels for you to complain about.”

“Wet towels? You left me the wet _spot_ , and climbed on top of my body to make me protect you from it.” And remembering that- all that petty domestic shit- somehow it hit Eliot even harder than remembering all the ways Q liked to be fucked. And Hoberman was right, even not knowing most of the story – they were lucky to have gotten through the horrible shit of the last year and change. To be here, _together_.

So Eliot leaned forward and he kissed Quentin, right there in front of everyone. Because he wanted to. Because he could. Because there was something good and true in his life and, this time, he would fight like hell to keep it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been reading my marqueliot series, you can probably spot the exact moment in this fic when my brain latched onto that AU and demanded that I write it.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter and story titles all taken from Leonard Cohen's "Anthem".


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